Working with an Economic Driver

Hiring Company:

General Motors

Project Scope:

When we talk about having broad experience, this project was on the far end of the spectrum in terms of time, energy, and workload! The GM Canada center is a massive facility that produces hundreds of new cars daily. It is filled with aisles, machines, lanes, equipment, you name it. One of the perks of our job is to be able to oversee the operations of the clients we serve. GM is by far one of the most fascinating experiences we had. There were so many workers with highly specialized jobs who consistently perform efficiently. In their billion-dollar industry, every aspect is thought out with research and implementation that optimizes the pillars of a successful business: management, communication, safety, and performance. ITP also strives to live ambitiously by these same pillars.

Our project was simple – cover the entire ceiling of the facility. The difficulty did not come in the ceiling itself because the structure was very uniform for the most part. Challenges actually came from the volume of work that needed to be done due to the sheer size of the building. To make things tougher, every minute lost in car production results in thousands of dollars lost to the company – so we needed to work in the most unearthly hours to get this project done. We had to plan this well ahead because it there was no was this could be done over a day or even two. The target was to complete at least 20% of the ceiling area each day during the factory’s off time. To only caveat was that the 20% completed each day needed to be structurally sound as to not interfere with the machines in the facility.

Measurements were taken twice, and we used 50% more clips to secure the tarp onto the ceiling each night. The job was a success as we did not interfere with even a minute of company time. GM Canada continues to be a client of ours that provides a huge project every now and then. The way I look at it, if you can do interior tarp protection in this facility you can do it anywhere. We were able to prove it during that job. It took late hours and the focus to maintain the schedule we had planned. Overall it was a huge success with only a few bumps on the road. But hey, we always say that no job is too big for us to handle!